eigenshit

[eigenshit]

Mathematicians be like:

Def 1.1: A function f is fucked-up iff it is not Lebesgue measurable

Def 1.2: A function is evil iff its graph has non-integer Hausdorff dimension.

Exercise 1: Prove that there exist fucked-up and evil functions

[eigenshit]

dimensions of executive function issues

(different reasons that i might not be able to focus, how to tell them apart, and [maybe] how to solve them. work in progress.)

low energy - feeling tired and sleepy - yawning a lot  - working feels like it takes way too much energy; I’d rather just sleep - feels effortful even to think - seek low-mental-effort activities like tumblr solutions: stimulants (incl. caffeine), listening to energetic music, getting up and going for a 20+ minute walk

lack of self-monitoring - feel like i’m running on autopilot - can’t easily recall the last 3 things I did - get up and walk around a lot; get lost in daydreams and thoughts - difficulty verbalizing thoughts - can respond to prompts, but hard to generate new plans/thoughts - often goes along with low energy solutions: not getting up and going for a walk, sitting at my desk and listening to happy-energetic music while looking at the task. talking through the problem with someone else – it’ll be hard at first but having to converse will bring my self-monitoring system back online.

restlessness - feeling bored, wanting stimulation - feeling frustrated - changing sitting position often, feeling uncomfortable, fidgeting a lot - seek tasty food but almost all food is not tasty enough solutions: try working with loud energetic music and a fidget toy. if this doesn’t work, go outside and run around for a bit until you’re breathing hard, then try again. let yourself have sugar after the run if you still want it. compulsion for something else - pulled towards other, more interesting thoughts/activities - if i start working, i get sidetracked by the more interesting things without noticing - easy to enter flow state on other tasks, just not this one solutions: this one is hard. write down the more exciting thoughts and promise yourself you’ll come back to them? (you may not come back to them.)

task aversion - feeling stressed when i think about the task - or, thoughts slip off the task easily (ugh field) - feeling scared or self-hatey when i think about the task solutions: try working on the task for just two minutes. if you still hate it / feel scared after two minutes, you can stop. try talking through the task with someone else and figuring out small first actions. try listening to happy-calm-forward-motion music. query your brain about other small things that would make you feel happy to be at your desk (tea? wearing your jacket if it’s cold? moving to a conference room with better lighting?) and if they’re easy, do those, and take the time to appreciate them as you’re doing them. but mostly, talk through the task and get help from others.

[eigenshit]

Am I getting writing done? No. But am I keeping up with readings and emails? No. But am I at least not inducing unnecessary anxiety by comparing myself to others who are highly productive and thriving during the pandemic? Also no.

[eigenshit]

“In my poetry class, I’ve always had students memorize something, a few things. I feel that if they’ve forgotten everything I’ve said, if they haven’t written anything down all semester and just stared out the window, at least they’ll come away with a poem memorized.

So one day, years ago, I was on the subway in New York, and a guy across the aisle kept kind of looking at me and finally he came over and said he recognized me as his teacher. I’d taught him about 10 years before that, or more. He’d since become an oncologist, and I congratulated him on his success. Then he said, “You made us memorize a poem.” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “I’d like to say that poem for you.”

And it was a little poem by Emily Dickinson that he’d carried in his head, and maybe in his heart, for all those years. Over the roar of the 6 train, he yelled that poem in my ear, and I think it was probably the most satisfying pedagogical experience I’ve ever had.” -Billy Collins, in a conversation

[eigenshit]

I’m taking my functional analysis comprehensive exam tomorrow and I’m here to say, look, I LIKE the spectral theorem just fine, alright? I LIKE the bounded Borel functional calculus. I think it’s great, and I even think the notation is pretty admirable. EXCEPT that it lets you multiply two INTEGRALS and call that the integral of the PRODUCT of the integrands!!!!! that’s fucking illegal!!!!

I guess it’s that the integral notation makes it very hard for me to believe/remember that the Borel functional calc is a homomorphism of algebras. like, integrals shouldn’t be multiplicative, y’know?

genuinely I have no expectation for how this test is gonna go. it feels like a total tossup. if I fail, it’s not the end of the world, there are second chances. and I’m oddly looking forward to going through my test-taking rituals and buckling in for the four-hour slog. it’s gonna be fun! I live for the thrill of the fight, or something!

[eigenshit]

[eigenshit]

“Not everyone deserves to know the real you. Walk away and leave them to criticize who they think you are.”

— Unknown

[eigenshit]

you ever have a class with a student in it that thinks they're the protagonist of the course. they act like they're the main character of MATH 251

[eigenshit]

[eigenshit]

[eigenshit]

a lot of us are working from home now, pretty abruptly. it’s hard, and especially if you’re like me, a sudden lack of structure coupled with really harsh self-expectations/a tense or unforgiving temperament is really challenging.

i started working from home fulltime this year, and my stop it series is a set of doodled observations i’ve made about the obstacles, bad habits, and unhealthy expectations i’ve found myself running into as i adjust. i hope maybe they can be helpful to other people too!

please check out the linked tag bc i have further observations/clarifications on these in the captions of the individual posts, but i figured it’d be good to finally dump all the notes i’ve made so far into one place. 

and a final note on what i’ve run into as i get used to working from home: it is a really really difficult balance for me, bc on one hand i really NEED a lot of self-discipline and productivity assists to get things done and make enough money to survive. but on the other hand, a loooooot of productivity advice/motivation/tools out there are really heavily keyed into capitalism and the concept of productivity as self-worth, and it’s easier than you think to slide into destructive thinking because you’re trying to keep yourself on track. do what you have to do, but make sure that the measures you take to try to make home employment work and get things done are always abt helping yourself do what you need to do without strife, not wringing as much work out of yourself as possible.

[eigenshit]

Shop talk

It’s always interesting to pick up specialized, esoteric terminology from experienced scientists and engineers.  The language you hear on the job is very different than what you learned in lecture halls!

For example, in school, you might learn how to calculate that 4.6 GHz radio waves have a wavelength of 6.51 centimeters.  On the job, the RF engineer will tell you that once you get to wavelengths much below 10 cm, radio tends to “wiggle through” unexpected gaps and “leak everywhere,” where it becomes a “huge pain in the ass.”

In school, you might learn that many metals will reflect neutron radiation.  On the job, the plasma physicist will tell you that neutrons tend to “rattle around” inside steel coaxial cables and use them as channels to fly out into the building, where they will “ruin your day” and “piss off the nuclear safety people” if you don’t shield them right.

In school, you might learn that tungsten is an extremely dense material that makes for very good thermal shielding in extreme environments, but it can be challenging to machine.  On the job, the mechanical engineer will tell you that working with tungsten is “the fucking worst” and if they have to build “an entire god damn wall of shielding tiles” out of it, they will “seriously pitch a fit.”

The fascinating and unique vocabulary of scientists is always such a pleasure to learn!

[eigenshit]

The big project. 

[eigenshit]

i finally read my spring course evaluations and they were mostly fine, the criticisms were pretty much expected (disorganized, talks too fast, doesn’t always know how to solve the exercises...), except for one that said that i continued to "enforce" the 7:30am class time when we switched to online recitations.

but i literally didn't!!! i didn’t require or even record attendance when we switched to zoom!!!! i gave them a way to asynchronously participate in group work, specifically so that students who couldn't come to the live sessions would still be able to get the supposed benefits of math recitations (collaborative problem solving and all that) and stay looped into the weekly progression of the course (since the lectures went fully asynchronous). and although some students did go out of their ways to tell me about their situations and explain why they weren’t gonna be able to make it to class, i never asked for that! they weren’t required to give me an excuse in order to get out class attendance!

and i feel bad because that comment seems to indicate that i didn’t do a good enough job communicating expectations and requirements after the switch. and i know that i kind of avoided saying explicitly “you don’t have to come to class live if you don’t want to,” particularly to the 7:30am class, because i was scared that nobody would show up! and that was a bad move and it affected students and that sucks. ugggh.

alright but, step back time: that was one student’s comment. there were several comments indicating that they appreciated the actions i took to adapt after our school went online, and regardless of how much i fumbled through it, that they could tell i was trying to promote both their learning and wellbeing. for now, that’s enough for me. i can do better, but all things considered, i think i did okay.

[eigenshit]

[eigenshit]

Sunday 10/4/20

Last month was INCREDIBLY busy for the two of us. I was trying to wrap up my interneuron project, get trained on the cortical development project, and TA for a cell bio course, all while trying to get married.

Good news: 

We postponed our wedding celebration to next year but eloped this year. My two maids of honor had compiled video clips of our loved ones wishing us a happy marriage and giving us marriage advices, and we got it just after returning from our weekend honeymoon to Delaware. It was just a really nice cap to a lovely wedding weekend. Can’t wait to do it all over again next year with our friends and family present (and hopefully without COVID).

I settled into a really nice evening routine of TAing from home after dinner. SOOO MUCH better than my usual routine of inhaling my dinner, hauling ass back to lab, and leaving lab at 9pm. SO MUCH better.

We started doing weekly Sunday brunch on the balcony as newlyweds. We have very different morning routines during the rest of the week, so this is the one day where we get to share and enjoy our morning routine together 😊 

I’m getting more acquainted with the new cortical development project! I’m still a little bit loss on the details, but I think I get the overall picture. A lot of my skills from working with cortical interneurons easily transfer over, and I think the person training me and my PI are very appreciative of that. It’s just really nice to hear that I’m helping push this project along. It’s only my first month, but I’m hoping to make more headway this month!

Bad news: 

I didn’t take any pictures of my studying environment, but will try to do more of that this month.

[eigenshit]

“One says, “Aha! So *this* is how Wiggler’s Lemma generalizes! The twistoploppic theomorphism is the same for *even* clackdoodles, but becomes a hypertwistoploppic pseudotheomorphism for *odd* clackdoodles. That’s so *beautiful*!””

— Douglas Hofstadter in Metamagical Themas on what it’s like to do mathematics. (via ifiwereburrisidbepleased)